"Soelver was ever watchful of Gro. His eyes were on the lookout whether he might not once surprise in hers the brightness of the dream, and make the hidden rose of love break through the green covering and bloom in reality. He longed thus within himself once to see the day and night aspects of her soul melt into a wonderful golden twilight. But Gro made no response to the gaze from his eyes. She turned her head aside so that her silken lashes concealed her glance. 'Gro, why do you never look at me?'--'I do look at you.'--'Do you see me with your cheek, Gro?'--'I see you, though, Soelver. I see you with the outermost corner of my eye.' Soelver bent his face beneath hers. 'Are you looking at me?' But Gro pressed her lids together as before a bright light and shook her head, 'No, Soelver, not so! You look too sharply, you look too deeply. You look so deeply that it hurts me very much. No, stand so Soelver, turn your eyes away!'--'Are you afraid of me?'--'No, no--why should I be afraid? But I do not feel comfortable to have you all the time wanting to read my heart, to have your eyes searching for some writing that does not stand written there. My friend and beloved brother, I fear what your look would draw from me--what would you drag out from my soul?'--'The spring day, Gro, when we first met.'--'Ah! Soelver, I scarcely remember it. It seems to me that I have always known you, that all your days you have been good and kind to me. Lately I have felt it in my heart and upon my cheek, as when my mother caressed me and that is long, long ago.'--'Gro, only say it, you are afraid of the word, but not truly--just say it--you love me.--You are silent because it is true.' 'No, Soelver, I have never felt that.'--'So you have dreamed it, Gro.'--'Dreamed!' Gro became fiery red. 'Dreamed--dreamed--oh Soelver, what have I dreamed? What do you know of my dreams? To have dreamed is to have dreamed, and my dreams belong to me, to me alone!' For a moment she turned to him a shy, quivering look, then tears trickled down from under her drooping lids. But Soelver observed that he had hit upon the truth. Immediately however he regretted that he had cast this look into the sanctuary of her soul. It was like the curious peeping of which the knight had been guilty, spying through the keyhole upon his wife, Undine.